80: A conversation with Sheeraz Gulsher, Co-Founder People Like Us on building a fairer industry

ShownotesFor the 80th episode of The Elephant in the Room podcast, I met with the amazing Sheeraz Gulsher, one of the co-Founders of People Like Us. People Like Us is an award winning not-for-profit that celebrates and supports media, marketing and communications professionals from Black, Asian, Mixed Race and minorities ethnic backgrounds. According to the website they are also working towards building a fairer workplace through equitable pay. A couple of weeks ago I met with Sheeraz to learn more about the ambition and vision for People Like US. We also spoke about: 👉🏾 The need for the industry to prioritise in order to progress👉🏾 The role of fair pay in attracting diverse talent👉🏾 We discussed how much progress the industry had made on equity, inclusion and belonging in the industry 👉🏾 How communications practitioners can contribute whether in their workplaces or in advising clientsWe also spoke about best practice and what keeps him going. Listen on any of your favourite podcast platforms 👇🏾👇🏾Memorable passages from the podcast👉🏾 Thank you very much Sudha. What an honour to be here. 👉🏾 Absolutely. So I've been in the comms industry for about eight, nine years now. I suppose showing my age. So I'm a guy that's born and bred in Luton to wonderful British Pakistani family. I've got three older brothers who are all my best mates. And yeah, I suppose in my time in comms, I've had a real rollercoaster in a fun way in the industry. And yeah, I'm really fortunate now to work at SNAP, looking after EMEA consumer coms. And I suppose in my spare time, I'm running an organisation called People Like Us, which I'm very proud of. 👉🏾 Oh, wow. You're like the grand master of comms. 👉🏾 Yeah, I'm very fortunate actually and they all are very different, I think, to each other. So my oldest brother, he is a bit like Del boy actually, it's the best way to describe him. Bit of a Wheeler dealer, but a wonderful man with a huge heart. My brother Darian is in comms and actually inspired me to join the folds. and my other brother, he is the most patient and kind person I know. And I like to think I have qualities from each of them. Maybe not all the time, but sometimes. 👉🏾 So ‘People like Us’ is essentially a movement that celebrates and supports, journalists and comms professionals from minority ethnic backgrounds. So my brother and I started this about two and a half years ago. It was just before COVID actually, and then at the time on paper, everything was great. We both had great jobs, both flying through our careers and everything was kind of great, but there was this quiet dissatisfaction, just growing. Just looking at representation in the industries, which was very low, people were being underpaid, unrepresented and blah, blah, blah, like I'm sure all your listeners have heard this all before. And we thought, why don't we try and address this? But my brother and I are, I suppose we're particularly in some ways we thought, okay, if we're gonna do this we have to follow two principles. 👉🏾  The first is whatever we do, needs to bring some kind of meaningful change, otherwise it just wasn't really worth it. We're not really here to virtue signal or whatever, and second, it just had to be fun. Like if it isn't...